Elon Musk, the owner and CEO of Twitter, said that the subscription service could come to India in “less than a month.” This shows how quickly he wants to bring Twitter Blue to the rest of the world.
Last year, Twitter released Twitter Blue in the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. On Monday, the company owned by Elon Musk plans to launch a new version of the subscription service in these four markets.
Musk has expanded what Twitter Blue has to offer, saying that anyone who signs up will get a verified checkmark and be able to watch longer videos and see less advertising. Musk said in another tweet that people who already have the verified checkmark will need to sign up for Twitter Blue in the coming months to keep it.
He has said before that Twitter Blue, which costs $7.99 a month in the U.S., will be cheaper in some countries so that prices are the same everywhere.
“Power to the people,” said the update note for Twitter’s iOS app before it went live on Monday. “Your account will get a blue checkmark, just like the accounts of the celebrities, companies, and politicians you already follow.”
Musk is betting that the subscription service will bring in a lot of money for Twitter, which he bought last month for $44 billion. Of that amount, he borrowed $13 billion from banks. Musk has to pay interest payments of more than $1 billion a year.
About 3,700 people lost their jobs this week, which is about half of the company’s staff.
Musk sent out a few more updates on Twitter Blue over the weekend in a series of tweets. He said that the company “can beat” the way YouTube gives creators a share of Ad revenue and that fixing Twitter’s search function is “a high priority” for the company.
He said that users will soon be able to add long texts to their tweets. Over the years, many users who wanted to post longer texts have posted screenshots of what they wrote on a note app. Musk said that “absurdity” like this will end with the new changes.
